How to stream remotely while being at home

Playground Hacks
#1

1, Disable bonjour on the DVR server
2. Block access to the DVR port from the client
3. Configure the router to bounce back packets going out from the client to the public IP and public port of the DVR and routing them to the DVR with the source address of the public IP by doing double NAT - SNAT and DNAT in iptables.

Steps 1. and 2. would not be necessary if the client were not second guessing the user decision. and trying always to connect locally.
Maybe there should an option to allow/disallow trying to connect directly and just trust the user when they say stream remotely? Trust the user - Yes/No?

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#2

Why would want to do this? Testing purposes?

I just use my phones 5G/LTE hotspot to connect my client device to test "remote" streaming while at home. Or use the over abundant Xfinity Wifi Hotspots networks that anyone with a Xfinity router broadcasts that i can pickup.

2 Likes
#3

No.

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#4

I have been meaning to try channels, see mentions of skip and loathe ads. When i want a car, it means i saved cash for it and i just buy it cl or dealer or classified. Dont need the pharma ads about obscure "conditions" that am sorrry some do have. All have side effects of vomiting and diahrrea since we all human and different. Noone will react same. DR. makes RX on risk and benefit, we consume same... get worse in side effects we quit taking and try something else.

Suggestion of provider all i need. Network engineers config around these limitations easily. Lemme know what specific operating system, will lab it up for you. Helps me get this tested for our 2 person, no sports, rare VOD home. We cut cable since we had a large expensive channel base but only watched 8 to 10 channels.

You would be surprised the problems literally dreamt about, mocked up and dared younger engineers to solve. Hardens them for career success. Already thought of a few ways to solve but need to comb thru product and hope solution does not exceed the typical home setup. If i dont have the equipment will order it. Simplest least cost and reliable is my goal. 35 years of this stuff and maybe some DARPAnet.... Piece of cake.

Someones brain with a provider is payment enough for me. Even though i avg 2 hours tv a week, nice to have.

#5

You are asking for too much. There is no single solution, no perfect solution, no best solution, no cheapest solution.

One basic solution is Channels DVR software, a home network, a piece of server hardware, and an Amazon FireStick connected to your TV. Your TV may already have the ability to run Channels, which would mean you would not need the FireStick.

The Channels server runs on many types of hardware. I use a Windows 10 machine which must be on when scheduled recordings come up and when you want to watch a recording.

Lastly, you need a source for the video you want to watch. If you can receive over the air TV by antenna, you need an antenna and a HD HomeRun box to grab the signals, If you want to get video over the internet, there are plenty of sources ranging in price from $0.00 to $100 per month.

You can set Channels to skip commercials on playback, but it is not an exact science. It works almost perfectly on some channels, and almost not at all on others. You can always skip forward using your remote.

#6

Couldn't you put your channels DVR on a different subnet than the users?

#7

I did, but still no go. Had to block at the router the new network from the old. These streaming clients are really sneaky :wink:

#8

you seem to have a very unique case. Seems like a lot of cat and mouse stuff going on. And you are allowing people to connect to your network that you can't control what they are doing? hmm..Well I guess one thing you can do it tell them to comply or you lock them down in clients. lots of fun things you can do to a specific client if you wanted. But then if they are that smart they might just spoof the mac and come across as a different client. but then that seems like a lot of headache to watch tv. But if I were to guess, you are not using this for you and your family.

#9

There's nothing "sneaky" here and being trollish really isn't helping anyone.

We are simply prioritizing the speed of discovery and speed and efficiency of playback.

Local Streaming provides a better experience when clients are close (have low latency) to the DVR vs Remote Streaming. Channel tuning and recording playback can be up to 1 second faster and it requires far less processing on the DVR.

When the app is opened:

  • Service discovery is started
  • Manually adding IPs are attempted to be connected to
  • The previously discovered IPs are attempted to be connected to
  • The remote address is attempted to be connected to

The one of those that "wins" (successfully completes first) is used. During that process, if the connection is remote, we ask the DVR for its local IPs and attempt to re-connect to all of them to give the best experience.

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#10

LTE gets you cellular streaming. Not the same thing.

#12

not if the client is connected to the phone wifi hotspot, to the client, wifi is wifi.
if i use the channels app on the phone itself, it uses cellular setting.

I also can just connnect a client to my secondary LAN port on my router, which is a different network subnet and DHCP server. That requires remote access enabled and then i can use Remote connection for it to connect to the dvr and it thinks its remote.

#13

I would suggest verifying this statement.

Under settings in the upper left corner there is an info on what the device is connected to.
I might be the private IP of the DVR.

#14

Isn't it supposed to show that? i have never seen it display anything else, though i never paid attention to it. It was some time ago, and i have no need to try that again. I just recall that I was messing with the stream quality settings and only Internet Streaming option worked.

I see only 2 options now, Home and Internet streaming settings.
(Maybe Apple TV does not have Celular option. I had done those test when i was using a Shield)

I know for a fact it was remote cause it was transcoding on the server, which is what i was testing by doing so, to see how the server did when transcoding to see how much it laoded the computer.